Snake Oil

Chapter 6

When Morton realised what was happening and that somebody was making off with the child he’d sworn to protect, he took a pace or two after the Indian woman, not even thinking what he was doing. There was the click of a gun being cocked and two of the warriors took arrows from quivers and fitted them to their bows. The old woman said something though and nothing happened. The young men stared menacingly at Morton, and he understood very well that if he attempted to regain the child by main force, then he was apt to be shot down on the spot. There was nothing at all to be done. He stood in impotent fury as the Indians trotted past him; veering off the road to bypass his van. As the travois carrying the old woman and the baby for who he was responsible passed him, Morton was tempted to rush forward and snatch Robert back. Perhaps something of what was going through his mind was visible on his face, because some of the young warriors watched him closely and he was certain that he would have been shot, the second he made a move.

Then they had all passed him by and all Morton could do was stare after the party as they disappeared down the road. He kicked a stone savagely; altogether at a loss to know what to do next. There wasn’t, as far as he could see, anything to be done. He could hardly ride against thirty well armed braves. He might as well just accept that Robert was gone and that was the end of the it. He didn’t for a moment suppose that the child would come to any harm in the care of the old woman. She had looked too kind and wise for Morton to imagine that she would be hurting the little boy. Most likely, she loved children and had a hankering to have one for her own again. He had heard of such cases, where grandmothers had adopted little children and raised them as their own. Most likely, she would care for the baby better than Morton himself was able to do.

Slowly and with great reluctance, Jack Morton got back up onto the driving seat and got ready to leave. Then he recollected the oath he had sworn earlier that day. He wasn’t a one for church-going, but that had been a solemn promise made to he knew not who. He would be acting wrongly, were he do abandon that child and simply forget his vow. Morton shook the reins and said loudly, “Giddyup!” Once the beast was moving, Morton turned the van round in a wide circle and set off after the Indians.

The plain stretched as far as the eye could see; flat and almost entirely featureless, other than a line of red sandstone cliffs which lay to the left of the road. The riders whom he had encountered were still in sight and they wouldn’t, he calculated, be able to travel much faster than his van. Those three travois would ensure that they moved at a steady and not overly fast pace.

It wouldn’t do at all for the men he was pursuing to know what he was about. Morton had a notion that if those boys thought that he was going to cause them any mischief, then they would send back a few men to make an end of him. He didn’t rightly know why they hadn’t killed him anyway, but he would be ill-advised to press his luck. This would take some little consideration. It wouldn’t help that child if Morton just charged in and got himself killed for his pains. He reined in the horse and sat for a good quarter hour, reasoning matters out.

One thing was definite, he wouldn’t lose track of those men who had carried off Robert. Even when they were too far off for him to see them directly, the dust they kicked up would betray their whereabouts. As long as the light held, Morton would be able to see where the riders were heading. Next off was to think on where they were heading. If those men and the old woman were on their way to a large village or other settled land belonging to their tribe, then the whole enterprise was hopeless. He could hardly ride this van of his through Indian country, stopping off just long enough to snatch a baby from some old female relative of theirs. But he didn’t think that that was what they were doing. The three travois hinted that this group was either wandering, or seeking refuge somewhere. Maybe they’d been displaced by this army activity of which he’d been told. If that was the case and they were refugees, then it could be that they were the only men he’d have to contend with. Even so, he would be ill-advised to ride up against them openly, but it might mean that he could raid their camp by night. Morton continued sitting there, watching and waiting until the Indians were quite out of view and the only indication of the presence was the grey smudge of dust hanging above them. Then he set off in pursuit.

During the War between the States, Jack Morton had been part of a group of saboteurs who had struck deep behind the Union lines. They had operated in civilian clothes, which mean that they were all liable to be hanged as spies if they were identified, but he’d never heard of any of his unit being caught. The Union forces called Morton and his comrades, “The Ghosts”; due to their positively uncanny ability to slip in and out of occupied territory, inflicting maximum damge for little or no losses on their side. Posters went up, describing them as bandits and murderers and offering thousands of dollars in gold for their capture; dead or alive. He had abandoned all that foolishness during the Reconstruction and had even taken the Ironclad Oath. That did not mean that he could not, in a good cause, return to those ways for just one single night.

As he made his way along at a leisurely pace, making sure that he allowed the Indians ahead of him to be so far in advance that they would not find it convenient to despatch a few men to investigate who else might be travelling along this road, Morton ran over in his mind what resources he had for the little expedition which he planned. There wasn’t a great deal, to be sure.

For his rifle and pistol, Morton had a small copper flask of powder; a “Stand of Flags” flask that he had had since before the war. There was also a drum of camphor oil that he used in the manufacture of his snake oil. That really was about it, apart from various items such as a coil of rope and so on. He’d just have to make the best of things.

Although as he knew, from coming that way earlier, the road between Oneida and Claremont ran straight as an arrow, the cloud in the far distance now looked to Morton to be veering to the left somewhat. He watched, intrigued. After another quarter hour, he was convinced that the Indians must have left the road and be striking out towards the cliffs. He may be wrong in his reading of the situation and it might very well be that there was a vast encampment of Kiowa or Comanche in that direction with hundreds of comancheros milling around into the bargain; but Morton didn’t think so. He had a hunch that this little group were, for reasons at which he could only guess, on the move alone. That being so, if they were now fixing to hole up for the night in the hills which probably lay behind those red cliffs, then that would be as good a chance as he was likely to get, to retrieve that child.

It was time to start moving. Although these days he was not an aggressive or vindictive man, Jack Morton was most decidedly vexed with the people who had taken the baby in such a casual way. He would fetch Robert back or die in the attempt and at the same time make damned sure that those boys knew that they had better have left him be. They’ve started this business, thought Morton, let’s hope that they’re ready to bide the consequences of it.

Watching the plume of dust as it moved along ahead of him, Morton could see now that it was almost at the foot of the cliffs. Unless he missed his guess, there was some trail or path leading through the rocks there, for which the Indians were heading. It would be evening soon and they were most likely heading to some spot that they knew, where they could rest for the night. All right then; let them do that very thing. But unless he’d grown old and silly in those years since the war ended, then Jack Morton was the man to see to it that they didn’t rest easy the whole night long. He’d have that child back again before dawn.

The cloud of dust which he had been observing and by which Morton was able to see where the Indians were heading, vanished as abruptly as if it were a lamp which had suddenly been extinguished. One moment it was there and then the next it had dissipated in the glow of the early evening sun. That was no great mystery; the riders had moved from the dusty surface of the plain onto the bare rock of the sandstone formations which lay on the left of the road. It was safe to speed up a little now, since the men he was trailing would presumably be in the canyons and gullies of the rocky hills and, before long, out of sight of the road. They would no longer be in a position to see the little bit of dust that he was himself kicking up.

Morton didn’t take his eyes from the place in the cliffs where he had last seen the dust cloud. He wanted to be certain-sure of finding the same route up into the hills that the Indians had used. The cliffs were maybe a mile off from the road he was on and he was a little dubious of the ability of his van to travel over the rock strewn land which lined the road. When he had drawn close to where he thought the Indians had vanished into the cliffs, he was pleased to note a crevice or gap in the sheer rock face. That’s a path, he thought, or I’m a Dutchman.

Rather than rattle across the rough and uneven terrain, so risking a broken axle, Morton got down from the buckboard and led the horse along. That way, down closer to the ground, he could see any especially large rocks and steer round them. His horse was just about at the limit and it would be good to unharness her and allow her to eat and drink a little. They were running low on feed and the water keg was also perilously low, but Morton figured that he could perhaps go without water more easily than the horse. After all, if she gave up the ghost, then he would be in a disastrous state.

Having reached the foot of the cliffs, Morton hobbled the horse and turned her loose. Then he shared the remaining water and settled down and waited for nightfall. There would be little point in setting off up that rocky trail until it was completely dark. He didn’t want to tip his hand before he was ready to lay down.

As evening fell and the twilight turned slowly to night, the materials he would need for his little adventure were removed, one by one, from the back of the van. There was a metal can, containing perhaps a gallon of camphor oil, a coil of rope and then his rifle. After these were neatly arranged on the ground, he climbed in one final time and brought out the powder flask. He weighed this carefully in his hand and gauged there to be perhaps three ounces of powder in it. There were too many imponderables in the operation for Morton’s liking, but there was precious little that could be done about that. He would have to play the hand he’d been dealt; not the one he would have chosen had he been able to fix the deck beforehand!

When it was quite dark, he slung the rope over his shoulder, tucked the flask of powder his pants pocket, picked up the can of camphor oil in one hand and his rifle with the other and set off up the path leading through the cliffs. The night was a little chilly, all though not precisely cold and Morton hoped devoutly that the men he was hunting for had seen fit to light a fire that evening; if only to cook their evening meal on. Otherwise, his scheme was apt to miscarry at once. When he reached the top of the slope though, his sensitive nostril caught the acrid tang of wood smoke. There was a fire going not far from where he stood.

What little experience he had of Indians, led Morton to think that they would most likely go to sleep as soon as it got dark and then rise at first light. Would they put a sentry on duty? He would have to keep a wary eye out for that. The path snaked through the cliffs and then came out onto a little plateau. It was a new moon, which gave him the cover of darkness. Below, in a natural rocky amphitheatre nestling in the hills, he could see the ruddy glow of a campfire. And nearer at hand, he could just make out the silhouette of a man who was seated on a boulder, with his head resting on his chest, giving the impression of a fellow enjoying a refreshing nap. Very carefully, Morton set down the can of camphor oil and then reversed the rifle, so that he could swing the butt at a handy target. He then walked up to the sentry, as silently as a cat and drove the rifle with his full strength against the sleeping man’s head; sending him flying backwards off the rock upon which he had been perched. Had this been a genuine military operation, then Morton would have made sure to kill the fellow before proceeding further, but he was reluctant to shed blood without good cause and after the blow he’d been dealt, Morton could not imagine that man being able to get up and fight for several hours yet. He retrieved the can of camphor oil and made his way gingerly down the slope to where the fire glowed faintly.

When he was almost at the bottom of the slope, Morton paused again and stood perfectly still, listening. He had thought that the travois he saw might have been carrying a couple of tepees, but in the embers of the campfire, he could see that in fact the travellers were sleeping in wickiups, built from branches and twigs, woven together. He doubted they could have thrown these up in the time available and so Morton figured that this must be a regular stopping over site for members of the tribe; whoever they were.

There was no sign of anybody being awake and so Morton set to work. In a sheath on his belt, he carried a razor sharp knife and this he drew. There were thirty or so horses, all contained in a little corral made of thorny branches, lashed together with rawhide thongs. That would not take long to dismantle. He set to, slashing the leather strips apart and carefully teasing out branches, so the beasts were able to go free when they chose. They might need a little encouragement, but he was sure that he would be able to supply that. Very carefully, Morton moved round the encampment, listening at every hut. He found the one that he was seeking last of all. Within, he could hear the unmistakable snuffling and liitle cries of a fretful baby. The odds, he supposed, were stacked very much against there being two young infants around here.

Little as he knew about the ways of Indians, it seemed reasonable to assume that the only woman, specially an exceedingly old one, in a party of men would have a wickiup all to herself and that she would have the baby with her. Morton, unwound a length of rope and cut it from the coil. Then he set down the can of oil by the opening which served as a door for the crude hut and ducked his head and entered. He was in no mood to fool around and so, much as it went against his general principles to manhandle a woman, he started by ensuring that the old woman would not interfere, nor raise the alarm. He could just about see in the gloom, where a body was laying and from the sounds that the came from the other side of the wikiup, he was able to hear that Robert was not next to the woman.

The sooner this business was concluded, the better and so Morton brushed his hands over the sleeping body to establish which end had feet and then grabbed hold of the head at the opposite end of the body; clamping a hand over the mouth to stifle any cries. Then he forced the length of rope in the old woman’s mouth and tied it securely at the back of her head, effectually gagging her. Working swiftly, he used the larger coil to tie her hands behind her back and then secure them to her feet. He was firm, but not rough. When this was done, he went over to where the baby lay and scooped him up in his arms.

So far, so good. Robert hadn’t woken, for which Morton was profoundly grateful. As he left the hut, he reached into his pocket and extracted the powder flask. Holding this awkwardly in the same hand with which he was supporting the baby, he picked up the can of camphor oil and unscrewed the top. There was a stack of broken branches and twigs near the dying campfire. Morton threw some onto the embers, hoping that the fire would rekindle more vigorously. When flames began to flicker, he carefully placed the can of oil on the fire and then dropped the copper flask of powder next to it. Then he sprinted up towards the path which led back to his horse and van. He was almost at the point where he had lamped the sentry, when there came the sharp crack of an explosion, followed almost instantly by a blinding white flash which lit up the whole area like a lightning bolt. Just at Morton had planned, the powder flask had gone off like a grenade; shattering the tin of boiling camphor oil and allowing the fire to ignite it at once.

Also as he had hoped and expected, the horses were driven mad by the sudden exploding gunpowder and brilliant white light of the blazing camphor oil. They stampeded out of the flimsy corral and headed away from Morton and thundered through a gap in the depression. “I bet they take a bit of catching, he thought. Then it was time to make his way make down the path to the van. Just before he began threading his way down, Jack Morton turned to the little encampment and said quietly, “Well, I reckon that if we meet again, you boys will know to give me a wide berth and not go troubling me or aught.”

Not knowing where the attackers were coming from, nor how many there were, Morton guessed that he would be safe from pursuit by the Indians for quite some time, particularly since they would be fully occupied for the rest of the night in trying to catch their horses. His main fear, once he had harnessed up again and was leading the horse and van back to the road, was that in the darkness, he would miss some rock and damage his only means of escape from the area. But God sometimes smiles on villains and fools, as well as the righteous, and he made the road with no mishap.

It had been one of those nights when sleep was going to be quite out of the question and so Morton resigned himself to riding the moon out of the sky. By dawn, he believed that he had put five miles between him and any pursuit by vengeful Indians. He really had no desire to be caught out here in the wilderness by a body of swift warriors on horseback and he kept glancing back anxiously to check that there was no sign of that happening. The sun had only been above the horizon for perhaps a quarter hour, when Morton knew that his hopes were vain and that a number of galloping horses were heading after him.

The dusty cloud raised by the riders was spreading along the road, so fast were the horsemen riding and unless he’d lost his skills as a scout, Jack Morton believed that they would be upon him in no more than fifteen minutes. Whoever they were, and he could have a pretty good guess at the identity of those racing towards him so frantically, they were in the Devil of a hurry. There was no point even trying to outrun them. His horse was tired and in sore need of a proper rest soon. All that Morton could do was try and pick them off before they reached him. It was then he recalled, with a sinking heart, that he had used the only powder he possessed in that reckless gamble at the Indian camp. His rifle was charged for one shot and he had another five shots in the pistol at his belt. His chances suddenly did not look too brilliant.

Never having been one for giving up without a fight, Morton did not mean to begin now. He reined in the horse and then peered back into the van. Robert was still asleep, which was a mercy. He took the rifle and then jumped down and positioned himself behind one of the wheels. Then, realising that he had just done something incredibly foolish, he stood up again and went back to secure the brakes. Then he knelt down and trained the rifle on the cloud of dust which indicated that he might have only ten minutes of life remaining to him. He cocked his piece and waited.

As the riders came closer, he was able to see that they were not, after all, Indians. All the same, nobody else seemed to be using this road and so the sight of these three men racing along made Morton a little curious. He remained where he was and continued to keep his rifle pointing in their general direction. Who knew, they could be road agents or the Lord knew what else. He wasn’t about to take any chances, not now that he had that baby back in his care.